Chemist: STOP WITH THE CHRISTMAS BALLOONS!
Telegraph does not take the ballooning helium shortage lightly, and neither does Cambridge chemist Dr. Peter Wothers: Helium is a non-renewable gas that is used […]
Science
Science Art: Seventeenth Century Sites Examined by Archaeologists, from The Archaeology of Boston pamphlet,
A map from the Massachusetts Environment Department City Archaeology Program, found on archive.org.
More on the “party drug” that’s helping America’s veterans (and others).
New York Times reviews the research demonstrating that MDMA, better known as X, can work wonders with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder patients: Government regulators criminalized the […]
Mommy and me. (Or, I can’t get this kid out of my mind!)
Scientific American reveals that researchers have found evidence of what they call “microchimerism” – the children’s cells are living in their mother’s brains: We are […]
Genetical book review
Lost in Transcription’s “genetical book review” is a great idea executed well. Not a review of books as literature, but a review of the science […]
Durian mystery revealed: why *does* it stink so deliciously?
Laboratory Equipment plunges to the bottom of a pressing mystery – why the “king of fruits” packs such a pungent punch: Martin Steinhaus, from the […]
Science Art: The Hairy Water Tortoise, Scientific American, December 21,1878
Click to embiggen I think I’m happier not knowing exactly what this is illustrating. I mean, I think I can guess, but that’s not nearly […]
Pollution-tracking by bird.
Nature reveals the outdoor version of canaries in a coalmine – how researchers use swallows and homing pigeons to track pollution: Nesting birds that feed […]
Quantum computers can work.
Laboratory Equipment points the way for the next big breakthrough in thinking machines: Many quantum algorithms require that particles’ spins be “entangled,” meaning that they’re […]
Reading really is fundamental. Neurologically. (Or: A Good Book Is Universal.)
Nature reveals that no matter what language you’re reading, your brain lights up the same way when you do it: Previous studies have suggested that […]
Tanzi is a rock star.
Boston Globe profiles the geneticist and Alzheimer’s expert who played organ on Aerosmith’s last album: It was 2009 when Dr. Rudy Tanzi was asked to […]
Rapping inside an MRI. (On freestyle neurology.)
Nature reveals something fascinating about what happens when a creative brain turns on the creativity: Freestyle rapping — in which a performer improvises a song […]
Science Art: Diurnal Motion of the Celestial Sphere, from General Astrophysics by Jerzy Stodolkiewicz, 1973
The dome of the heavens, 1970s-style. Found in a very special pdf in archive.org – a book on how we can look out at the […]
Carnivorous sponges found. (As if you didn’t have enough to worry about.)
Nature goes deep, deep into the subconscious pit of our fears… or at least the Pacific Ocean… to present the underwater answer to the Venus […]
Why is dissonance noisy?
Nature explores the strange mathematics of yuck – the neurological reason why we find dissonant music hard to listen to: Consonant chords are, roughly speaking, […]